In some types of conventional cooking appliances, water supplied from within a water tank is heated by a steam generation device to generate steam, and the generated steam is supplied to a heating chamber (see, e.g., JP 2009-41822 A (PTL 1)).
This type of cooking appliance includes a water level sensor with a plurality of different-in-length electrodes combined together. By detecting which ones among the detection-use electrodes of the water level sensor are submerged in water, a water level within the water tank is detected, where with none of the detection-use electrodes submerged in water, it is decided that no water is present.
However, this cooking appliance has a problem that the cost increases because of a complicated structure of the water level sensor. In this cooking appliance, a space for the water level sensor is necessitated in proximity to the water tank causing the unit size to increase, while with the unit size unchanged, causing the water tank size to decrease due to the space for water level sensor resulting in decreasing the water tank capacity.
Moreover, in this cooking appliance, when the steam generation device stops steam generation due to factors (heater fault or pump fault) other than emptiness of water in the water tank, it is impossible for the water level sensor to detect the factors.